when an anti-establishment hippie is established...

 BARANGAY PANSOL

Yesterday I was sitting on Nanay Nelly’s thin wooden bench, watching her and another old woman skilfully slice two green papayas into tiny pieces. Chenet, Lady Mae and I had walked to Barangay Irukan earlier; we brought Jen, Kristal and their schoolteacher “parent” along and we all went to Lady Mae’s old school---ducking under a barbed-wire fence as a shortcut--- where Ms. Atienza taught Grade 3.

         It was a lovely school: all bright reds and yellows and blues for the lower grades and afternoon brown for the higher ones. A chico tree near the nipa hut busily bore fruit for the children, and Mae picked me a ripe one. She said she misses the school and her old classmates badly---although most of them go to the same high school, many had turned unpleasant. She and Rexie sat on the nipa hut, naming who used to sit where, and turned nostalgic.

         We crossed the road to our primary objective: to pick a couple of papayas for lunch. Chenet looked for a long stick to poke the papayas with, and grabbed one sticking straight out from the ground. It was the stick used to hold up the electric wires, and the black cord came looping down as the women yelped and laughed but still refused to stand up from their respective positions on the pavement. Jen had sat down beside an old woman on the street, with Rexie. Two other women were lined on the front steps of a house beside the papaya tree, I was moving here and there, and Chenet was still trying to cross the wall that led to the garden. Lady Mae ended up picking three papayas with the stick, Chenet was laughing too much and could not jump the wall. The papayas were small and unripe, and because they would not grow any bigger, were called Papayang Tagalog.

The women wanted us to try Linupak, a sweet camote dish made by grinding butter, sugar, peanut butter and all sorts of ingredients together. Everyone wanted us to try Linupak: Ate Baby from the store was most excited about it. She wanted to bring some to the river, but we never got around to making it. She wasn’t able to come with us when we trooped down to the river either.

        Chenet, Rexie, Lady Mae and I walked back to our little house carrying the three papayas. The “terrace” was filled with people as usual: the kids AJ and Ashley and Diane and Nash and that older kid who always carried him and the adults Jhoane with her baby Totoy, her Kuya, Chenet’s Kuya, and a bunch of women who were sewing---creating lace patterns on white cloth for export. The terrace rang with their shouts and guffaws and teasing. It was barely 10 am.

       Like the day before, I had woken up at 6. Nanay made me fix myself some 3-in-1 coffee and eat bananas and bread. Chenet swept the leaves on the road and I took my mug out in the terrace and watched Lolo and a friend hang out on the cemented bench out front. Their accents were so thick I couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but they repeated their concern pertinently enough that I sort of understood. I think they were complaining how they could not find a container for vinegar…they sat there for a long time, interchanging phrases in thick Batangueno accents as I watched, sipping my coffee, amused, enamored and thinking all of life’s wisdom lay in those two men: one absently fingering his bolo, the other digging his cane into the dirt.

         The two women in the kitchen knew life, too. They cut through their vegetables and chatted quietly, turning the three papayas into a bowlful of strips. I went with Nanay to her cousin’s on the other side of the road to gather talbos. Her cousin was sitting on their front porch like she was doing yesterday, in a real nipa hut with bamboo steps you climbed and gigantic windows you never had to close. Her cousin climbed down and sat with her husband to watch us, smiling as Nanay plucked shoots and vines from their camote field and Mae ran off to look for ripe chico and I tried to get their small dog to come near me.

You had to rinse the talbos and strip off the fine hair on its outer stems. Mae taught me how to do it while Chenet sliced the papaya that could not be made into the soup. The riper ones should be eaten with vinegar and salt instead, and it tasted like buro. We popped them into our mouths as Nanay prepared the tomatoes and the garlic, taking out the seeds and crushing the heads. Then she put salt over the papaya and rinsed them in. We were making Bolanglang---boiled vegetable soup over a wooden fire.

I had forgotten people still used wood to cook. Nanay used matches, paper and plastic to build a small fire in her hearth, then expertly arranged chunks of wood around it. It was a tiny ceremony, a long process for each dish she would cook. When the mango branches caught fire, she placed the pot of water on two iron grills atop the fire. I was impatient unlike she was, so I would alternate going off into the terrace and playing with Totoy with going back to the kitchen to check on the pot. Nanay had to call me in when the pot was boiling. Then we put in the tomatoes and the garlic, the papaya, waited for it to cook, and then the stems of the talbos, and then when it was almost ready, the leaves. It tasted wonderful.

We ate the bolanglang with fried tapa---Kapitan had butchered a pig yesterday and gave us a kilo of meat, along with dinuguan he had cooked from its blood and innards. We had atsara--- shredded papaya cooked in vinegar--- which we had taken home from a birthday party we attended earlier. We had fish boiled in patis and vinegar---a better tasting version of my favourite canned mackerel, and a whole pot of rice---cooked over wood and fire. We ate with our hands, and I sat there on the table for a good hour, the fat cat mewling by my foot, Zoey the dog darting in and then out when chased with the broom.

Tito Charlie swooped in a little later to grab some talbos; he was going to make sinigang na tilapia, he explained. He had lemon grass with him, and told me to come eat with them after I was finished. That, I promptly do.

It was an amazing three days in Barangay Pansol. I remember coming back from Kagawad Joreng’s house, where we had the loveliest plate of chiko and where I first saw the kaong tree spouting vinegar, and I saw a neighbour casually plucking plants of Nanay Nelly’s front yard to cook. I could not imagine a more perfect way to live. Boys set out with big baskets and bolos to gather grass for their cattle. Mothers set out with pails and soap and clothes to clean and bathe in the river. The plants grew, the trees bore fruit, the land is fertile, the air is fresh, the mountains gave water, children ran free, the women sat sewing, the men worked, the girls sang, the boys played rough, everyone stopped to chat. My first night there, Jhoane had told me how after her wedding, they set up a tent outside their house for the reception, and absolutely everyone---anyone who came at all---was fed. In these parts, nobody gave a bull about invitations because everybody was free to come.

Before we went to sleep on my last night, I had told Nanay Nelly it was amazing how everybody just kept their doors open the entire day, and people just sauntered in and out of everyone’s homes, eating and chatting and laughing. I’d forgotten people still lived real lives, free from TV, schedules, meetings, grocery lists, wants and paychecks. Being Manila-born, envy is but natural, but never had I felt it churn more achingly than with these people.

Posted by: Hoon at 02:17 | link | comments

my baby's waging a war with fruit flies. he's lord of the flies.
here's his account:
 
oh babylove!

Got home around 2am from studio. Stanley and I were starting to really feel exhaustion after working, especially after soundtripping on 90's grunge bands and reminiscing good 'ol highschool days.

Anyway, been waging a war against these fucking fruit flies in the kitchen for the past few days. Most of my roomates are gone so I'm left to deal this alone. Tevon and his friend hung out at the apartment a few nights ago and left their dishes in the sink, and the oven top was kinda gross. He usually cleans up afterwards but either forgot or just didn't have the time. I wouldn't want to judge him because that happens to me, too. The democratic policy of the apartment has its pros and cons. Really, I like it. I think its cool. Basic rule is, just clean your own shit. And if it ain't yours, just clean it anyway. Good karma comes around. The con being that sometimes you end up cleaning someone else's shit. But people notice. Couple of times they cleaned my dishes, too. No one really complains about anything and everyone respects their own spaces. I like it. Main reason I've been in this apartment for that long - 4 1/2 years. Thats pretty long in NY standards.

Yesterday, Saturday morning, I was in a cleaning mood. Woke up in the morning and fucking fruity flies in the kitchen. I got this water-based Flying Insect spray from Walgreen's the night before. Sprayin' at them the whole morning. Them flies are pretty sturdy, I'd have to say. I was spraying at this one fly pointblank, it was already covered in foam and I could swear it was giving me the finger. I have no idea how they keep multiplying! (considering I already killed a bunch last night) I have to find the source. It should be somewhere in the kitchen, of course. So I looked around, and lo and behold, I was moving around bags of flour on our topshelf and more fucking flies came outta somewhere. I looked behind the flourbags and I saw this plastic bag, and I remember, were potatoes our old roomate (and I meant our past roomate, holy shit) forgot to throw away. It smelled really funky and I could tell theres a whole city of them flies in there. I put it in a plastic bag, tied it tight and dumped it in our trashcan inside the kitchen (which came out to be a big mistake). So thinking I took care of the problem, and continually killed the remaining flies with my spray and Havaianas sandals - yeah! (its proabably real hard to swat flies using Crocs)

And the whole morning I cleaned the oventop, the sink, mopped the floor, even cleaned the toilet, and bathroom sink. Nice. I actually like cleaning. Lumalabas pa lalo ang pagka-OCD ko when I start cleaning, especially if you have the tools. Sarap dito sa States they have every possible cleaning material you could have, and I love using them. From sink degreasers, to soap scum eliminators, to oven top gunk destroyer, to toilet water tablet disinfectants - its amazing. They're like drugs! Amphetamines, Morphines, Quaaludes, etc.

So I went to the studio that late Saturday afternoon and worked.

Next day, Sunday. Gorgeous fucking day. Perfect Fall weather, sunny, good breeze. Oh its a beautiful day. We could spend the whole day in the park (walking distance from here) reading books and canoodling on the grass. Air is so fresh and clean. Oh its perfect. I can't wait for this to happen, I'm telling ya. Went to the bathroom to pee, turned on lights, and boom - fucking fruit fly gang! Fucking A! Took the spray and foamed up the bathroom! I'm furious. I checked out the trashcan where I threw away the old potatoes, opened the lid, and a whole gang came out! Aw Fuck! I immediately threw that bunch o' trash outside the house, sprayed even more, swatted even more...and then I realized how amazing these creatures came out to be. I swatted them, and there's blood! Blood! These tiny creatures came out to be in this world, all with their tiny working organs, blood, nerves, from old rotting potatoes. Can you imagine that, more "life" after rotting "dead" potatoes. It was kinda amazing. These flies almost came out from nothing! The persistence of life. Ain't that wonderful. And here I am sending them to their next lives and they haven't even started to appreciate their brief moments on this planet, at least in our kitchen. Who am I? God? Well at least IN MY KITCHEN because I'm paying rent! So fuck you flies and get outta here, 'cause I wanna eat breakfast!

Moral of the story? I love you very much babes and I want to be with you forever.

e

Posted by: Hoon at 12:34 | link | comments